Contents

Psychosynthesis has applied it to those in whom spiritual ambition exceeds their personality limits, leading to a backlash.[2]

Etymology

Icarus was a Greek mythological figure who tried to escape imprisonment in Crete with his father Daedalus, using wings Daedalus crafted out of feathers and wax. Daedalus warned Icarus not too fly too close to the sun or too low to the sea. Overwhelmed with the excitement of flying, Icarus flew much too high, and as a result the wax melted and his feathers fell off. Down Icarus plunged into the sea, and indeed into death as well. The story of Icarus is often used to signify the dangers of over-ambition.[3]

Characteristics

It is seen in a personality type that contains many or all of the following attributes:[1]

ascensionism (the notion that the future is not dictated by the past or present, and no destination or goal is unreachable) combined with an anticipation of falling (a foreboding sense of a future "crash and burn")